


Myra, martyr or just major bad luck?

by Apocalyptic_Alpaca



Series: The weather's acting weird [2]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types
Genre: Asmodeus - Freeform, BGS - Freeform, Gen, Minor Character Death, Tieflings, ah right, it's all fun and games until a demon king sucks out your soul, she's a warlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 09:48:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14668500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apocalyptic_Alpaca/pseuds/Apocalyptic_Alpaca
Summary: A simple add-on to "A clockwork finch that flies no longer". My original BGS for Myra, who I love dearly





	Myra, martyr or just major bad luck?

I've been told I was lucky for a Tiefling. Born in an enclave of minorities in a large overground Dwarven city, I have not encountered the mistrust others of my kind may have received. A disregard for statute and politeness has brought me in trouble more than once, but has also given me the greatest opportunity of my life.

Since I was but a little girl, the lore of deities and supernatural beings always intrigued me. Perhaps it was that few of the times I ventured into human territories, they quickly started chanting small prayers as to ward themselves from me. The interest followed me through my schooling were I learned that many tomes had been written on a variety of Gods, deities and otherworldly beings, and translated into dozens of languages. Since the library on the borders of our enclave was searching for a librarian, I wished to get the job because of the vast knowledge found in the tomes only the staff were allowed to peruse. I thought myself fairly competent for an 18 year old with my knowledge of multiple languages and lore I'd learned in my enclave, but when arriving at the library, the disgusted way I was treated by my peers made me wish I could turn around with my pride intact. If only the other candidates weren't such enormous idiots. Before long I had insulted them in more ways than one for their idotic behaviour around such precious books. I was sure this outburst would have cost me any chance I had at the job... but a dwarven lady looked past prejudice and saved my hide. That was the day Helja took me on as her apprentice.

Though first wary of her intentions, in Helja I found a fast friend and mentor. Not only did she teach me Dwarfish, but she took me on research trips, where I learned basic spells, and studied the way nature reacted to cursed magic. We explored a few ruins were we found solid additions to our library, which she gave me permission to research. Except for one book. The last ruin we explored was one of my ancestors, were the lack of plants in the vicinity indicated high levels of dark energy. It was there that we found the cursed tome that started the downfall of the peaceful life I'd come to love. Helja deemed the tome too dangerous for my hands. I trusted her to know it meant the magic was darker than I could handle, and not that she thought I'd do wrong with it. Instead, she took the tome to her research chambers and studied it herself. The way she looked emptier and emptier after each time worried me, but her steadfast wit had not wavered. I suspected nothing, until I found her.

The sight of her intelligent eyes empty frightened me. Helja was a woman I considered undefeatable, be it by knowledge or foe. But the way she was lying in front of the tome, eyes wide but unseeing, body in awkward angles as if she'd just fallen to the ground. I had been too frightened to react, too slow to react, too numb to react, and before I knew a group of officials had come in wanting to seize me for murder of the head-librarian. Only my instincts got me to move, and with the cursed tome under my arm, I fled.

When I thought myself far enough from civilization I took the time to go over my equipment I always had on me. My scholar's pack and light weapons on my back had not hindered me on my move. Nor did the pouch with a set of common clothes I took with me on explorations bother me. I felt unsafe alone, but at least had the usual leather armor I wore. Rather, it was the heavy tome that weighed me down. When my morbid curiosity overcame the sadness of the past events, I opened the book. 

Written in an ancient Infernal I could barely decipher, were summoning procedures for Demons and Devils. I thought it strange for Helja to have succumbed to such knowledge. But as I continued to read, I came across a chilling chapter; that on Asmodeus, the blasted overlord of the Nine Hells to whom the entirety of the Tiefling race was to blame. And there, wedged between the pages was a letter. A letter Helja wrote, to me, if my name on the envelope was any indication. In it were written the procedures she had undertaken while researching the tome, and the questions and answers she had found. The last question, scribbled in hasty characters on the bottom of the letter, saddened me to the core. 

"Will the Tieflings forever be doomed because of their predecessors?"

For days I wept under the empty sky, not eating nor sleeping. And the eve of the fourth night, I saw. I saw a being so great I could not understand, I did not understand. Its majesty baffled my senses and brought me back to the planes of reality my mortal body resided in. In that moment, I knew that even if the evil I had encountered was so great it seemed undefeatable, the world did not revolve around its existence. Rather, far above were beings so great and ever-encompassing they would consider Asmodeus but a puny speck of dust. It is from there that I pulled the strength to continue my journey in search for an understanding of Helja's last question.


End file.
